4 buns in the oven

Pregnancy...
 This is the part I was most interested in when searching for info on what to expect during a quad pregnancy! I went threw manny quad mamas blogs trying to find info and tips, if any, on how to stay pregnant and give our quadlings the best chance! I hope i can offer the same help and support to othernew and expecting quad mamas! So ill do my best to remember details!

First trimester
I started to notice a difference in my belly at 7 weeks, before I even knew there were quads. My pants got snug real quick and I had to wear a belly band, which I still wear with my pants today because I'm too cheap to buy new pants lol. We were advised to start moderate bed rest as early as possible, so from about 8 weeks when we found out. The less pressure on the cervix the better so the horizontal position was best. I stopped driving,if I had gotten in a accident that steering wheel would squish those babies. Started drinking 3 ensures a day, got some super prego vitamins, took fish oil, calcium, vitamin d, frolic acid and baby aspirin. It's very important to give your body all those vitamins and keep your protein intake high. For a quad pregnancy it's recommended a 70-100lb gain, that means around 3500 calories a day, and lots and lots and lots of water! I highly recommend reading " When your expecting twins triplets or quads " by Barbra Luke. There are a few others that also helped ill post them later on if I find them.  Around 6 weeks i started to wake up in the morning feeling like i had been hit by a truck! My uterus was growing so fast my muscles surrounding were stretching like crazy! That went on for a few months. To my surprise I didn't really get horrible morning sickness. I only threw up three times during my whole pregnancy! I did on the other hand have severe nausea for the first three months. :(At 12 weeks I was officially on modified bed rest so my momma moved in with us to help get us packed to move to colorado and help around the house while andy was at work during the day. I felt them start moving for the first time at 13 weeks, it felt like a little fish flopping around! I could feel and see when they would roll, the whole sac would shift and it almost felt like a ball rolling around in my belly, funky feeling! 

 

 

Second trimester
At 15 weeks we pcsd from Texas to Colorado, for you non military folk pcs is when your duty station changes and you get to pick up your whole life and move! What a drive! What would normally be a 16 hour drive took us three days! We did a partial move, the army moved most of our things but we
moved our vehicles, critters and Uhal truck full of our junk! Although I was only 15 weeks, my
uterus was much larger so the drive was extremely uncomfortable. We finally made it to Colorado, I
got back in bed and mom, Andy, and some friends from the unit helped set up our new house. We
weren't able to unpack every thing because we had jumped on our orders so quick and reported a bit early that they didn't have a big enough house open for us on base.so we were going to have to move again after the babies came! I wasn't able to travel after 15 weeks so we had to get the move done ASAP!  I quickly got in to meet my new doctor, who is completely amazing and my hero! This


woman was the kind of person you liked right away and I felt I could depend on her to take care of my babies! She gave me her cell number and made sure the staff knew who I was in case of any
issues. From here on I had the best care I could possibly ask for.  Want to know the secret to healthy multiples?? Amazing doctors and nurses! My belly was growing quickly and so were our worries. Around the late teen weeks in a higher order multiple pregnancy is when you start worrying about preterm labor. Your uterus can only stretch is far, and your cervix can only take so much pressure. As your uterus gets closer to term size your body thinks you are nearing the end of a pregnancy so your cervix begins to dilate to prepare for birth.

 
 
 
I stopped labeling pics after about this time, some day I'll dig out the rest to post on here, this pic is maybe @ 28 or 29 weeks 

Abdominoplasty Day 1

Well I had my abdominoplasty yesterday. I was so nervous waiting to go into the or. Andy stayed with me while I waited  and we watched Star Trek on the iPad. Yes we are Trekkies Andy more so that I but we are and proud of it lol. The doc came in and drew his plans on my belly. They prepped me with a Iv and I was ready to go on back. They took me in to the or gave me same gas and next thing I knew I was waking up and in pain! Ouch! So They loaded me up with some more drugs! They tricked me because when I got up to go to the bathroom I didn't get to go back to my comfy bed but I had to sit in a chair. I remembering asking if I could see what they took off lol of course she said no.  We hung out there in recovery for a few more hours and waited to be cleared to go home. They gave 

the option of spending the night but I just wanted to go home. I feel like I have spent enough time in the hospital as it is and could just picture them coming in and saying they found something and I need to stay for more tests. Probably not the most logical way of thinking but ehh. I don't remember much 

from last night, mom came to pick Andy and I up from the hospital, he's still not cleared to drive because of his seizures. The drive was not to bad, the hospital is right own the road and the worst Bart was all the little bump sing the road. We made it home, now for the next challenge... Stairs! I'm all hunched over because my skin is so tight so I'm walking up the stairs like an old lady very slowly. Most people will recommend to you to get a recliner or prob up a bunch of pillows to keep you bent after this surgery but lucky me... Mom has brought her adjustable tempurtic bed with her to stay with us, so I get to spend my recovery in that! It was hard at first sitting almost straight up and trying to fall asleep but I so tired It didn't even bother me. The most difficult part so far is trying to get up to go to the bathroom. Movement hurts BAD! As long as some one helps me get up its doable. In comparison to the c section: i feel that I have more control over my muscles, with the c section I just felt sloshy. The pain of the incision is about the same. I have severe abdominal muscle pain, from sewing them back together, I did not have any pain like this with the c section. Overall it is just very painful, I hear the first week is the worst so a few more days and I'll be over the hump. Possibly tmi but I recommend starting stool softeners before surgery to keep everything flowing correctly. The pain 

meds constipate you and I could not imagine how painful it would be to strain with my muscles hurting this bad.

Tummy tuck pre op

Today was my preop appointment! I'm starting to feel excited and nervous. Only one week until surgery.i thought I would post a few before pics so y'all can see what quadruplet pregnancy can do to your belly. It's amazing what your body can do and how your skin can stretch so fast. At one point near the end of my pregnancy my belly almost started to bleed. My stretch marks were growing so fast and raw. It was a very painful and itchy time!

These pics were some time near the end of my pregnancy. Those stretch marks hurt soooo bad!! Can't believe all those kiddos fit in there! So amazing!

 

  

Side view with yoga pants still hiding flap

Now with the band down and flap out you can see the left over skin and fat. You can also see how I still look prego because of the muscle separation causing my abs to protrude.

See that little scar there on my back? That's the whole reason why this surgery is so important for me. Sure it's going to be great having this flap just cut off but the most important thing is having my abdominal muscles sewn back together. They tore so badly during my pregnancy there is no chance of them repairing on their own, even with physical therapy. I have degenerative disc disease of my lumbar area. I had a discectomy on my L4L5  two months before getting prego with the quads. My back did not heal properly because of having to go on bed rest right away. The back muscles supporting my injured discs became weak. Abdominal muscles are crucial to supporting a injured back and mine do not function correctly. In order to start rebuilding back and core muscles my ab muscles need to be repaired. Just to my luck during my pregnancy my bulged discs above and below the newly repaired disc turned into herniations and I will need a second back surgery later this year. I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease when I was 21. Why did I have this issue at such a young age? I don't know! The docs don't know. Genetics? Bucked off one to many times? That was my first and only health issue. I never thought I would be that person who is in and out of hospitals. But the good news, surgery can help fix discs, strengthening muscles will support my weak areas, when the discs get too worn down I can get new ones or a fusion(ugh really trying to avoid those options) and cancer can be killed. I guess for now it's just the journey of getting there. 

So, back to my tummy tuck....

I'll be down for a few weeks so mom is coming back to help with the kiddos. Andy is finally back home so he will be doing his daddy stuff. We have some friends here that will come by now and then to give mom and Andy a break. I have moms tempurtic adjustable bed to sleep in so I don't have to worry about being too uncomfortable. And Auntie Riane is coming out to help take care of me the week after surgery! Yay!!! Those were all the big worries, so now I just have to focus on keeping my body healthy! 

 I can't wait to sit down and not have this in my lap! 

I have decided to start using my blog. I created it over a year ago hoping to inspire other quad moms as reading blogs inspried me during my pregnancy. But now that I have been posting to ourquadlife on face book for a while I have realized that more than quad moms like to fallow our story. So this is my first official post dedicated to continuos blogging!
Today reading a moms post on my thyroid cancer support site it reminded me of how hard our first year of being parents were. We were first time parents to not just one but four babies and I had cancer. The thought of cancer is normally terrifying. I think of treatments, going bald and death. We lost my grandfather to cancer. He had lung cancer that spread to his brain and took his life. It was a hard and emotional time for my family. That's what I think of when I think of cancer. Now papillary thyroid cancer is way different than aggressive lung and brain cancer. But it's still cancer. I hate when people say,"well at least it's only thyroid cancer" really? Because it was a pretty hard recovery from having my neck sliced open! And it sucks having everyone stare at you because you have a scar that  looks like a shark tried to bite your head off! Or having to take meds every day for the rest of your life because if you don't you literally go crazy. Or doing radiation and not be able to see your kids while it's in your body. Or always wondering if it will come back and you need more treatment. No cancer is "just cancer" don't ever tell some one with cancer that. Cancer is terrifying and it sucks. We never really talked about it when we found out. I was 21 weeks pregnant and had been admitted to the hospital for bed rest that very week. I had started to go into labor, they had stopped it but my cervix was shortening, we were afraid we would lose the babies. Any more stress on my already stressed body could cause labor to progress. So after we got the news we just had to put it out of our heads and not think about it till after the babies arrived. In the back of my head for the rest of the pregnancy I knew that I would soon have to deal with my cancer, but that just had to wait. They were delivered at 30weeks to the day. Thank god they did not have any major health issues and we just had to worry about them growing. At this point my neck was really swollen as the cancer had grew during my pregnancy. Pregnancy hormones can actually cause cancer to grow at a fast rate. All of my body was still very swollen from the pre eclampsia, which also really sucks by the way. My feet and legs were so swollen you couldn't even see my ankles! They looked like they were going to burst! Any way, when the kiddos were 3 weeks old I went in for surgery to remove my cancer. Lol I went into the pre op room with my Brest pump so I could pump before and after surgery, I was determined to continue pumping and later breast feed my babies. Well, 7 hours later I was out of surgery. Omg, my boobs were hard as rocks and hurt so bad. I was pumping every 2 hours, so a whole 7 hours of not pumping ... Ouch!!! Lol Andy and mom came recovery right after I woke up to pump for me, I was officially a dairy cow! They removed my entire thyroid and 49 lymph nodes on the right side of my neck.I don't remember much in the following weeks. Mostly, my neck hurt, I had no muscle control in my neck and it messed up my right arm, I couldn't really swallow, I was exhausted and felt like a crappy mom for not spending much time with my babies. My neck felt like a wet noodle. I couldn't really move it and needed a neck support pillow to help hold it up. It was very sore and shocked the muscles and tendons in my right arm, so I had a hard time lifting and moving that as well. The first week I felt like I was learning to swallow. Liquids would just slide down my throat and it was very difficult to eat. I had no energy, none! It was horrible, just being awake drained me. I tried to keep pumping but my body had been threw so much, I just could not produce. It was so hard accepting that I would not be able to breast feed. I know this may sound odd but that was probably the hardest emotional thing I went threw with all this. I could not feed my babies. The thing a mother was made to do, I couldn't. It was very difficult to accept. Now I know that even if I did keep trying to breast feed, even though I had a abundant milk supply, I wouldn't have the time or energy to keep pumping, even if I didn't have to do cancer treatment. The other hardest part emotionally was feeling like I was being neglectful to my babies. I felt that I should be at the hospital spending more time with them, and constantly felt guilty for only spending a few hours a day being a mom. Now I know that I was doing the best I could and wish I could just go back in time and tell myself to go back to bed and get more rest, lol because that would be the last time I was able to get sleep like that!  About 6 months after that I did my radiation. The radiation wasn't the hard part, it was being off my thyroid meds for the month before treatment. Your thyroid controls your hormones in your body and basically controls
how your brain functions. With out your thyroid you basically go nuts. I couldn't think. I felt like my brain would get stuck. I couldn't judge if someone was being nice or mean to me. I didn't know how to properly react. I would get so tired I felt like I was going to collapse. It was so hard. So how do you care for 4 new borns, have no thyroid, and be kinda crazy? You have TONS of help! My mom has been with us almost my whole pregnancy and almost the whole time since the babies came home.we had our awesome army family and our base get together to organize help. We had the Mormon church in our area organize a army of people to be here on a daily bases. We had family and friends fly in to help. Organizations brought us food and things for our family. We had so much support from every one around us. There is absolutely no way we could got threw those times with out all of their help. It was amazing. We will always be so grateful for all that helped us in those hard times. My radiation was pretty easy compared to everything else, I took two pills and stayed in the hospital overnight. I felt sick and threw up a few times over the week, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.. I had to stay in a hotel for about a week because I couldn't be near the babies. Andy stayed with me and after a few days Sadie dog joined us. It was like the honeymoon we never had lol! A week of just hanging out in a nice hotel together watching movies, besides not feeling like crap and being radioactive it was kinda nice. So now it's been about a year since radiation. I still have cancer, but it's really just the left overs. There's not a concentrated cancerous area, it's just left over cells that the radiation did not kill. So my next step will be another body scan, and possibly more radiation. I have a appointment at the end of the month so we will have more info then. We are not in a rush, my cancer is non aggressive and very slow growing, so if more treatment is needed I doubt it will be any time soon. Well that's my cancer story! Guys and gals check your necks! Yes men can have it too! You can still have cancer even if your young. I was 23 when we found out. Your thyroid can still be working even if you have cancer, you may not even have any symptoms! ...now to figure out how to post pictures....